Dad

First, a disclaimer: while any and all are welcome to read such a post I feel obligated to warn those who might have stumbled upon this blog looking for a news from Belgium that tonight this blog is a way for me to communicate with all my close friends and family back home about the past and not an update on the present.
This will hopefully not be a sad post and though, perhaps, a solemn one. At the very least the tone will be different than the fun we've been having these last couple months.

This is a memoriam for my father, Paul Brent Dase.

It's already been a year since Dad passed away and, while I admit that pangs of homesickness have hit me now and then since we first left for Europe, on this night more than all the rest I wish that I could be with my family back home. It's hard not to recall how a terrible phone call during a dark drive changed my life forever and that grim stretch of road from the outskirts of Saskatoon to Lloydminster.


For my entire life Dad was a constant. I could be sure that any given trip home would eventually lead to a curving road down the hill where Dad would be plowing the driveway with the quad or working on some project in the yard. And, despite how stubborn I could be sometimes, I look back on all that yard-work and those ridiculous projects with a fondness I couldn't possibly have anticipated at the time.

Dad always seemed to me to be from an Age of Heroes. In high school, I can distinctly recall my friends talking about how they were pretty sure they could 'take' their dads and I remember quite literally laughing out loud at the thought because a few days earlier Dad had been hauling six foot logs over his shoulder as I did my best to keep up, him asking me teasingly (as I'm pretty sure he did at least a thousand times) "When are you gonna bulk up?"

Bulk up indeed!

But that was Dad: larger than life and half as serious. Anybody who knew him even a little remembers his sense of humour and booming laugh.

He never seemed to want much more than to make a living and spend his time in nature with his family going hunting, fishing, or just taking pictures with his camera. In a world where some are obsessed with collecting more money than they could spend in a lifetime, I think that's a pretty good lesson to pass on.

I remember the day I took this picture. You know it’s a candid shot because Dad was never the type of person to willingly let you take a picture of him without  good reason (i.e. having either a fish  or other animal on display). That day he had me trying to skim shrimp (at least I think it was shrimp) off of the top of Grandfather Lake with a five gallon bucket. I could never tell when he was getting me to do something just to mess with me.

Here in Belgium, All Souls' day (November 2nd) is a national holiday. It is a day in many Christian denominations when Christians say a prayer for their departed relatives and loved ones. I don't know about the theology behind it, but I like the idea of taking a day to remember all the people who have changed your life and passed on. So this Monday I'm going to do just that, and light a candle for my father.

With Love,

Kyle